Previously in this chapter, time has been taken to look at the different definitions, explanations and points of view on engagement by different organisations, consultancies and academics. One thing is certain: the concept of employee engagement is ambiguous and still lacks a universally accepted definition; however, Kahn’s (1990) view has been influential across the studies of engagement.
Robinson et al. (2004) established substantial differences in the views of authors and actual descriptions of engagement and what drives engagement. They argued, “There is no easy answer as far as engagement is concerned. In addition, it is unlikely to find one particular approach or certain drivers that induce engagement, since employee engagement and its drivers may possibly differ in every organisation, and job itself” (Robinson, 2007). Additionally, “there is ‘no definitive all‐purpose list of engagement drivers (CIPD, 2007). Ketter (2008), adding to the debate, suggesting that, due to numerous studies that have been carried out on employee engagement, there are over 26 different drivers of engagement. O’Neal and Gebauer (2006) suggested that employee engagement drivers or definitions vary globally, depending on the country, culture and organisation. Hence, engagement is likely to be prejudiced by many interconnected factors. However, several studies have been carried out, with each itemising different drivers or different measurements of engagement. This section will attempt to review most of the engagement drivers identified across different studies, to give more in-depth knowledge on the engagement construct.
Most notable amongst the studies is the Gallup Q12 questionnaire of engagement. Gallup, potentially the most prominent firm associated with employee engagement, characterised engaged employees as “those who work with enthusiasm and feel a philosophical connection to their organisation and job, along with innovative mind-set to move the organisation forward” (Gallup, 2006). This definition views engagement as employees being passionate about their organisation and having a strong bond with the organisation, not because of the monetary value attached, but for the sole purpose of achieving organisational goals. Gallup developed the Gallup Q12 instrument, known as Q12 Meta-Analysis. A meta-analysis is a “statistical integration of data accumulated across many studies” (Gallup, 2006). Gallup researchers established 12 key expectations to which, they argued, form the foundation of strong feelings of employee engagement. These sets of questions, according to Gallup, are basic questions that every engaged employee should be able to answer yes to. So far, 1.5
million employees have participated in the Q12 instrument (Robinson et al., 2004). The questions are summarised in the table below.
Do you know what is expected of you at work?
Do you have the materials and equipment to do your work right?
At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work? Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person? Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
At work, do your opinions seem to count?
Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important? Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work? Do you have a best friend at work?
In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress? In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?
The Q12 Index (Robinson et al., 2004).
Another set of engagement drivers was developed by Siddhanta and Roy (2011). Their findings were presented at the International Conference on People Management. The drivers developed in their study were on the basis of 12 major studies conducted by research firms, such as Gallup, Towers Perrin, Blessing White, The Corporate Leadership Council and others. The drivers include:
Trust and integrity: According to Siddhanta and Roy (2011), employees tend to communicate better with managers and organisations that are honest, trustworthy and go by their word. Such managers make employees more engaged in their jobs. This idea is also supported by Cleland et al. (2008), who indicate that employees trust managers who listen, encourage development, open communication, make time, respect individuals, encourage employees and are just and fair in providing feedback for their employees. This view can be argued to be similar to one of Sak’s (2006) engagement models (perceived organisational and supervisor support). Sak argued that organisations and supervisors that encourage and support their employees are likely to have a more engaged workforce.
Nature of the job: Siddhanta and Roy (2011) highlighted ‘nature of the job’ as one of the drivers of engagement. They claimed that for employees to be fully engaged, the job should be challenging enough to motivate them. Similarly Cleland et al. (2008)
identified ‘work’ as a driver of engagement. They argued that for employees to be engaged, the job should be challenging, have clear goals and accountability; there should be freedom to act, purpose and meaning, important work and resources available. This is also consistent with Kahn’s (1990) idea of psychological meaningfulness of a job as an engagement factor.
Career growth opportunities: : Siddhanta and Roy (2011) study suggested that organisations that lay more emphasis on employees’ development and career path are likely to have more engaged employees than their counterparts.
Pride: The study also found that an establishment with a good reputation instils admiration in their employees, thereby increasing their level of input in the organisation.
Co-workers: The survey also found that good working relationships between employees could enhance engagement. Relationships with colleagues significantly increase employee engagement levels. Effectual and confident relationships between managers and co-workers are important if employees are to be engaged (Cleland et al., 1999, p. 5).
Another study was carried out by Towers Watson in May 2012. Towers Watson is a principal global service company that assists organisations in improving performance through efficient people, risk and monetary management. The study identified five top drivers, which they argued characterise engagement;
Leadership: According to Towers perrin (2009), leadership is an effective tool in growing business. Hence, a capable and motivated leader will not only drive the business forward, but also find suitable ways of making employees work beyond their required role. Morgan (2004) supported the argument by suggesting that certain characteristics possessed by managers can be critical for employees to be engaged, in particular, a high-quality communication structure. In addition, Macey and Schneider (2008) stated that “bad leadership and management policies can have a negative impact on engagement behaviours”.
Stress, balance and workload: Engaged employees know how to manage stress and have a flexible work arrangement, i.e. a healthy balance between work and personal life. They also believed that for employees to be engaged in their jobs, the
organisation must make sure the employees understand the organisational business goals, steps they need to take to achieve those goals and how their jobs contribute to achieving those goals.
Supervisors: Additionally, they argued that organisations must employ the supervisor’s knowledge on how to manage employees, how to assign tasks suited for all employees’ skills, and employ supervisors that will act in a dependable manner, be consistent with their words and, most importantly, treat employees with respect. Organisation’s image: Besides the above mentioned drivers, the organisational image
was also argued to boost engagement. Further review suggests that organisations must strive to build a brand name that is highly regarded by the general public, and display honesty and integrity when dealing with employees and business activities with the general public. This act can, to a large extent, propel the employees to be engaged. In agreement with most of the already mentioned drivers, the Institute of Employment Studies in a survey carried out with the NHS, identified more drivers they believe propel an employee to be fully engaged. Their findings suggest that the strongest driver of employee engagement is ‘involvement in decision making’. The extent to which employees are able to voice their ideas, views and values, and have managers listen to such contribution, is a strong way for employees to be more engaged (Robinson et al., 2004).
The opportunity for development in their jobs also increases the employee engagement level (Robinson et al., 2004). Furthermore, the degrees to which organisations are concerned for their employees’ wellbeing. They also pointed out that, for engagement to be achieved, the managers will have to play an important role in fostering an employee’s sense of involvement and values.
The study also found that other drivers of engagement are attached to the sense of feeling valued. However, it is also important to note that some of the drivers identified in their studies have been recognised to boost other concepts, like motivation.
Aon Hewitt is a leading research consultancy that specialises in global business consulting and talent management. The firm carried out a survey on engagement and its drivers and came up with factors they attribute to boosting engagement in employees. Aon Hewitt’s global engagement research was carried out between 2008 and 2011. It included 6.7 million
employees and represents more than 2,900 organisations. The engagement drivers identified are:
Quality of life: Quality of life is a factor that makes the employees feel relaxed. For example, physical work environment and the employees’ work-life balance,
Company practices that drive engagement according to Aon survey include policy and practices, performance management, brand alignment, company reputation and diversity,
Rewards: This includes pay, benefits and recognition,
Opportunities include, career development, training and development.
People that influence engagement include senior management, managers, colleagues, valued people and customers.
This analysis describes the employment understanding of what has changed, and what engages the current workforce. By identifying these drivers, employers can be aware of how to meet the needs of their employees and it highlights the specific areas of enhancement that have a major impact on engagement and production results (Aon Hewitt, 2012). The drivers highlighted in the Aon Hewitt survey are different from the IES (2003)’ survey, although both studies recognised reward as a source of engagement. This heightened the argument that engagement is yet to have a consensus or an accepted definition or drivers. Below is a diagram representing the above survey.
Fig 1.2 AON DRIVERS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
This diagram represents what drives employees to be engaged at work (Aon Hewitt, 2012, p. 6).
The Wyatt Watson survey, carried out in 2008, revealed a few engagement drivers which include communication, compensation and benefit, customer focus, strategic direction and leadership.
Communication: According to the Wyatt Watson (2008, p. 5), “communication is a principal predictor of firm performance as well as a driver of engagement around the world”. They suggested that organisations that encourage engagement via communication give their workforce straight answers to questions and concerns, institute dialogues among senior management and all employees, and act on employee contributions and concerns.
Compensation and benefits: Their study symbolises a strong driver of engagement. This dimension encompasses far more than just pay levels. The Wyatt Watson studies indicate how linking pay to performance, maintaining peer pay equity, communicating the value of total compensation and ensuring satisfaction with benefits all drive engagement.
Strategic direction and leadership: Strategic direction and leadership are key drivers of engagement. Employees need to have confidence in the future and to understand and trust what senior leadership is doing to make their organisation successful.
They also indicated that organisations with strong customer focus make customer satisfaction a top priority, base decisions on what is best for customers and hold employees accountable for customer service (Hewitt, 2012, p. 5).
In a different study, MacLeod and Clarke, (2009, p. 75) wrote a report for the CIPD on the main drivers of employee engagement. Their report summarised employee engagement drivers as:
Engaging leadership: They argued that leadership is an important aspect in engaging employees. A good leader “ensures a strong, clear, and unambiguous organisational culture that gives employees a line of sight between their profession and the image and aims of the organisation”. Such leaders are tactical, anticipatory, proactive and employee focused. They provide an understandable strategic picture of where the organisation is going and why, in a way that gives workers information and an in- depth view of their own job (MacLeod & Clarke, 2009, p. 75).
Engaging managers: Managers drive the organisation forward on a day-to-day basis. They are critical and offer transparency about what is required from employees and plays an important part in giving appreciation, feedback, coaching and training. They also indulge in treating people as individuals, with justice, equality and respect, and with a concern for employee well-being. They also make certain that work is planned resourcefully and effectively. In companies that do this well, managers treat people as individuals. Standard Chartered Retail Bank is a good example of the tasks managers engage in. The manager’s duty is summarised as “Know me, focus me, and value me” (MacLeod & Clarke, 2009, p. 75). Finally, the CIPD (2007) also added that managers who are fair and visibly committed to the organisation tend to increase engagement in employees more than their counterparts.
Employee voice: Another factor identified by McLeod and Clark is employees feeling confident to air their views and be listened to, both in relation to how to do their work and in decision-making within their own department, by means of jointly sharing problems and challenges, and the commitment to arrive at solutions. In organisations that practice the above policy, there is a stable, liberated flow of information and ideas with transparency across the organisation. This entails having an administrator who is willing to pay attention to employees, who is not fearful of the division of labour (MacLeod & Clarke, 2009, p. 75).
Organisational lives the values: “A conviction amongst employees that the business functions with the right ideals, and that good behavioural norms are adhered to, which leads to trust and a sense of integrity”. For organisations that practice this, ideals and behaviours are united, providing honesty, reliability and confidence in employees. Any problem between these creates mistrust and cynicism (MacLeod & Clarke, 2009, p. 75).
Organisational purpose: Organisational aims and goals are a very important area in engaging employees; in particular, the morality attached to the organisation’s mission may have a differentiating effect on engagement. An investigation by Holbeche and Springett (2004) on how employees experience a sense of meaning at work, found that an organisation’s purpose/mission that centres strongly on customers is more likely to engage staff than those focused on shareholders, profits, or a mix of stake- holder needs; however, it is crucial that there is a comprehensible line of sight to this purpose in people’s day jobs if the motivational effect is to be achieved (MacLeod & Clarke, 2009, p. 75).
Engagement and engagement drivers have been mostly studied by organisations and consulting firms, creating a hole in the academic analysis of the concept; however, from the engagement drivers above, one can notice that the construct engagement is very broad and can have many drivers. Adding voice to the argument was Shaw (2005) who pointed out that “it’s arguably unfeasible to justly measure in a survey all the actions behind engagement”, due to the fact that, “there are potentially thousands of different individual actions, attitudes, and processes that might affect engagement” (Dicke, et al 2007,p. 7).Furthermore, it is also important to note that some of the engagement drivers identified by these studies have been also associated with other constructs; for example, Herberg (1959) identified recognition as a driver of job satisfaction, as well as colleagues at work. Communication has also been highlighted as a driver of motivation. In addition, Greenberg and Baron, (2003, pp. 166-167) identified communication as a driver of commitment. However, employee engagement has gone a little further, identifying customer focus, strategic leadership, opportunities, trust and integrity, making the construct more of a three-way construct, i.e. between the organisation, the employees and the customer.
Saks (2006) is one of the few academics to study employee engagement. His research on engagement itemised five factors as the basis for employee engagement. These are
Job characteristics: This could also be termed meaningfulness of a job as Kahn, (1990) portrays it,
Perceived organisational support, Perceived supervisor support, Rewards and recognitions,
Procedural justice and distributive justice.
Excluding procedural and distributive justice, other elements have also been recognised by other studies as drivers of engagement.
This study intends to incorporate some of Saks’ (2006) framework of engagement, as well as Kahn’s (1990) psychological conditions in measuring and predicting engagement drivers in the banking sector of Nigeria.
Another survey was carried out by Mollnaro and David (2005) of The Banff Centre. Six factors were itemised as predictors of employee engagement:
Successful organisation: Every employee wants to be associated with success and, consequently, want to be part of a winning organisation. The phrase ‘winning organisation’ could mean the organisation is financially successful or that it is renowned as a leader amongst customers, or the organisation is ambitious, has a bright vision, core purpose and has a well-planned business stratagem in place (Mollnaro & David, 2005).
Working for admired leaders: “Accepted leaders” are one of the most significant non- monetary drivers of employee engagement (Mollnaro & David, 2005). Organisations that have a strong network of admired leaders create the conditions for high engagement (Mollnaro & David, 2005).
Having positive working relationships: Employees value functioning relationships with highly talented and proficient colleagues. As a result, organisations that can provide adequate qualified employees are likely to drive employee engagement high. Recognition and appreciation: Recognition is an additional vital driver of employee
engagement and it has also been identified as a driver of job satisfaction (Herberg, 1959). Recognition could be “monetary rewards and compensation, but it also can
refer to the appreciation and direct feedback that employees receive from managers” (Mollnaro & David, 2005). This recognition and appreciation demonstrates that employees are valued and respected and that their contributions are acknowledged by the organisation. Robinson et al. (2013) demonstrated that ‘feeling valued and involved is one of the major employee engagement drivers’. Recognition also means that leaders notice the often unnoticed things that employees do to make their organisations successful (Mollnaro & David, 2005).
Living a balanced life: According to Mollnaro and David (2005), organisations with cultures that value work-life balance and aid workers to achieve it, will be rewarded with extremely engaged employees. Work-life balance does not mean that employees are not loyal or committed to their organisations; it means that employees want to lead whole lives, not lives solely centred on work (Mollnaro & David, 2005).
Doing meaningful work: Like Kahn (1990) and other related employee engagement studies, Mallnaro and David also identified meaningful work in their studies as one of the tools that drives engagement. Meaningful work “is often work that makes a difference or has an impact to the organisation”.